Preschool Outline - Weather, Letter A

It is time once again for preschool; we started yesterday. Poor Laura still has two more years until she starts Kindergarten (stupid deadline delaying my brilliant little girl!). Instead of paying for 2 years of preschool, I am getting together with my darling friend Karyn to do a joy school for our girls. Thank heavens both she and my mom were elementary school teachers and are very qualified to run one of these.

I thought I should post my outlines for each preschool class so that I have access to them when I do this again. And, some of you all might enjoy these and the expertise I've gleaned from Mom and Karyn as well.

I didn't make it through all this material yesterday, but I thought I'd put it there anyway. Perhaps I didn't make it because poor Sara had diarrhea and I changed her pants 5 times and her outfit 3 times in the course of our 2 hour preschool. This experience really made me question my decision to do preschool. Thank heavens for Mom who helped with the preschool as I dealt with crap (literally) and held poor Sara in between episodes!

Anyway, here is the outline (which unfortunately did not format well when I copied it over from Word):

CIRCLE TIME

1. Show and Tell
2. Pledge of Allegiance
3. Calendar
a. Recite the days of the week
b. Recite the months of the year

LETTER - A

1. Tracer Page
2. Sound
a. Read Book “Caps for Sale”
b. Apple Tree Finger Play
Way up in an apple tree (arms above head)
Two little apples smiled at me. (thumb and index finger make O’s)
I shook the tree as hard as I could (make motion like shaking ree)
Down fell the apples (hands flutter down)
Mm-Mmm were they good (rub tummy)
c. Apple poem
Alice is picking some apples for Ann,
Apples for Al and apples for Dan.
Alice is picking some apples for Pete,
Apples for Dad and apples to eat.

MATH – Counting and recognition

1. Count to 100 together
2. Flashcards of Numbers 1 – 20: recognition
3. Numbers 1 and 2 worksheets

THEME – Weather

1. Movement and Music
a. Dancing like wind with scarves
b. Singing
i. “Rain Rain Go Away”
ii. Rain Finger play
Patter patter pat (clap clap clap)
Down the raindrops fall (hands up, fingers moving as hands lower)
To give the thirsty flowers a drink (cup hand w/ finger tips together)
And help them stand up tall (stand straight)
And the petals open wide to say (cupped hands gradually open wide)
“Thank you God, for rain today.”
iii. "Rain is Falling All Around" and dance to words
2. Instruction
a. Precipitation pattern – evaporation, clouds, precip
i. Show vapor in a pot
ii. Show pictures of different kinds of clouds – look outside to see the kind of clouds that day
iii. Incorporate concepts of bigger and smaller, lighter and darker when looking at clouds
b. Temperatures
i. How they affect the world around us (changing leaves, flowers, what we wear, etc)
ii. How they affect precipitation – the kinds of precipitation
3. Art
a. Make a cloud on blue paper with cotton balls
b. Cut out snowflakes